Ukip candidates have the right experience for local government

Ukip is ready for county council elections this Thursday

7:00AM BST 28 Apr 2013

SIR – Richard Grant (Letters, April 21) is right to state that Ukip does not have any MPs at the moment, but it is only a matter of time. Many of those who currently represent constituents in Parliament have no experience of anything other than university, political activism and then a “safe” seat in Westminster. Could this explain why the country is in such a state?

As a sitting Ukip councillor and a candidate at the May elections, I would like to point out that, having run my own business for the past 20 years, I have always sought to apply my life experience to the running of local government.

Unlike Mr Grant, I am not happy with the way that the three tired old parties have carved out cosy sinecures for themselves on local councils (just look at the levels of councillors’ allowances) while ignoring the wishes of those who continue to vote for them.

A vote for Ukip is not a wasted vote; continuing to vote for the same parties that let us down time after time, however, is.

Ian J Smith Lakenheath, Suffolk

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SIR – Concerning Ukip’s expected success on May 2, there will no doubt be a steep learning curve for many new Ukip local councillors, but I am sure they will succeed in that challenge. At least they will not be hampered by having to obey the central diktats imposed by the LibLabCon central policy machines. Ukip will trust its local councillors to make the right decisions for their constituents.

Regarding Ukip’s ability to manage council budgets, Richard Grant might want to reflect on the inflated salaries that many council executives and senior management teams have awarded themselves. Many are paid in excess of £100k and some more than the Prime Minister, for what is essentially an administrator’s role.

Ukip will challenge the status quo at a local council level in the same way that Nigel Farage is exposing the calamitous nature of the federal European project.

Ian McWilliams Godalming, Surrey

SIR – Richard Grant can rest assured that Ukip has county council candidates of wide-ranging talents and qualifications who will be as able as any to run a local authority.

These candidates will bring with them commonsense policies covering the whole spectrum of council responsibilities and a determination to fight for our right to remain a sovereign nation governed only by those whom we elect.

E G Barrows Wittersham, Kent

SIR – Richard Grant attacks Ukip candidates in the approaching council elections for “lack of experience in running things”. This is a fairly obvious criticism if you view party politics as the driving force of local government, and local councils as mini-Westminsters.

However, the gale of fresh air that Ukip’s 1900 candidates want to bring to these elections is the fact that they are not subject to the strict central direction enforced by the three main parties but are simply standing to represent local constituents in a common sense manner – a return to the days before the suffocating intrusion of party politics into local affairs when there were many more independent councillors.

Sir George Earle Bt Crediton, Devon

SIR – Of course all the council budgetary problems will remain.

But that won’t stop Ukip councillors from flagging up the endemic waste of resources tolerated by the incumbent establishment parties and opposing politically correct policies or plain crazy projects such as wind turbines.

Tony Stone Oxted, Surrey

SIR – I am not a member of any political party and I can understand Richard Grant’s reticence regarding Ukip’s experience in council control.

But what is it they say about a new broom?

Mike Bridgeman Market Lavington, Wiltshire

Let’s use gas while we wait for nuclear power

SIR – I share the concern of Professor Sir David King et al (Letters, April 21) that the building of new nuclear power stations is being delayed. It may take a decade or more due to political dithering.

In the meantime we need to keep the existing coal-fired stations running by converting them to gas.

As I asked earlier this month (Letters, April 7), why can’t Didcot power station be modified to burn gas instead of coal?

Ian Strangeways Wallingford, Oxfordshire

SIR – While we are shutting down our coal power stations, Germany is busy building them. This year alone, another six will come on stream.

Together with two which opened in 2012, they will be capable of supplying 13 per cent of Germany’s electricity.

Coal remains by far the cheapest and most reliable source of energy. If it is good enough for Germany, surely it is good enough for us?

Paul Homewood Stocksbridge, South Yorkshire

SIR – Given that the Government can find £32 billion to fund HS2, is it not feasible to fund our own new nuclear industry?

This could also be an ideal opportunity to expand public share ownership by giving everyone shares in a newly listed British energy provider.

John Reeves Beckenham, Kent

SIR – If Peter Lilley’s statement in Christopher Booker’s article (Opinion, April 21) is accurate –that the increase in China’s CO2 emissions alone in 2011 was 200 million tons more than the total emitted by Britain – then the energy policy of the Government is beyond nonsense.

Perhaps the energy minister could be prevailed upon to respond to Mr Lilley’s statement so that we taxpayers can judge for ourselves.

Ken Rimmer Chelmsford, Essex

Deporting Abu Qatada

SIR – It really is pretty rich for Ed Miliband, Yvette Cooper and others to blame Theresa May for the fact that a bunch of bewigged buffoons, in thrall to Brussels, have yet again blocked the deportation of Abu Qatada to Jordan.

Theresa May has done more in three years to try to have the vile preacher of hate deported than the previous Labour government did in a decade.

Indeed we would not be in this predicament over the deportation of undesirables if the last Labour government had not shackled us to the EU’s ridiculous Human Rights Act in 1998. But of course, politicians have extremely short, not to say very selective, memories.

If Spain, France and Italy can get away with deporting undesirables in defiance of the EU Human Rights Act, why on earth can’t we?

Robert Readman Bournemouth, Dorset

Flagging it up

SIR – Alan Titchmarsh (Lifestyle, April 21) is right that we should all be proud of the place where we live, not only our country but our own city, town or village.

Encouraged by the Flag Institute, Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, has recently relaxed the rules on flag flying and is positively encouraging organisations to fly their own flags, just as they do on the continent.

We in St Anne’s on the Sea have had a flag designed for our town free of charge by the Flag Institute. It is being called “the people’s flag” as we are encouraging hotels, shops and indeed everyone to fly it with pride. Part of our flag shows the famous St Anne’s lifeboat.

Vince Settle Lytham St Anne’s, Lancashire

Renaming celebrities

SIR – We hear too much these days about “celebrities”. They overwhelm the media and create undemanding role models for lazy youth. Part of the problem, is the hyperbole represented by the very word “celebrity”. It carries a connotation of deserved fame, of excellence, that in most cases is unjustified.

Currently visiting Australia, a country not known for tolerating the pompous and the fake, I note the use of the noun “identity” instead. This does seem a more acceptable alternative; “media identity” is factual, attributing no talent or otherwise, and leaving it to the beholders to make up their own minds.

Paul Wood Southampton

Tired auld rhetoric

SIR – Last week the Chancellor set out the sensible reasons as to why Scotland’s future is best in the United Kingdom due to the currency arrangements that would be in place in a potentially independent Scotland.

Within hours, the Scottish National Party’s John Swinney, Scotland’s Finance Secretary, responded by claiming it was “scaremongering”.

This is the SNP’s favourite word. There are over 1,400 uses of “scaremongering” on its website.

Kieran Bailey Almondsbury, Gloucestershire

Austerity is affecting educational prospects

SIR - Had private education not been available to those who could afford it, the wealthy might have fought to keep our grammar schools. Instead they let them go and now we face the cost of bringing them back, or would do were it not for George Osborne's prescription of austerity for the "have nots", which is most of us.

Any chance of him tiring of his hair shirt before we do?

I doubt it!

David Armstrong Hipperholme, West Yorkshire

Benefits claims

SIR – Your report “900,000 drop benefit claim rather than face a medical” (March 31) was misleading because it conflated two related but separate processes. The sickness benefit in question is Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), which replaced Incapacity Benefit for new claims from October 2008.

The figure of 900,000 refers to all those who have applied for ESA since its introduction over four years ago, but who have withdrawn their claim before undergoing a face-to-face assessment. These people weren’t claiming the benefit before. People generally drop their claim for perfectly innocent reasons – often people become ill, apply as a precaution but withdraw when they get better.

Since April 2011 people who were on Incapacity Benefit have been migrated to ESA. This has yet to be completed but of the 600,000 who have already been processed, only 19,700 have dropped their claim.

19,700 makes a far weaker headline than 900,000. Grant Shapps, the Conservative Party chairman was quoted as accusing Labour of using Incapacity Benefit to ‘hide the unemployed’. This leaves out of account the fact that numbers soared under Thatcher, and Labour introduced ESA in an effort to get people back to work.

SIR - With the approach of local elections and the nation's active voters continuing to decline, is it time to try and reverse the current downward trend by providing some kind of stimulation in the form of a financial incentive?

Would the prospect of lottery-style prizes - say 10 £100,000 jackpots (or just one £1 million) - do the trick?